Even Green Day sound better with more dynamics

Whether or not you agree that 24/96 audio sounds better, there’s no doubt that the lossless downloads offered by sites like HDtracks.com will sound better than the same songs as mp3s from Amazon.

But that advantage has just ramped up to a whole new level.

HDtracks have recently released 2012 remasters of Green Day albums like “American Idiot”. They’re analogue masters, they’re available in 24/96 lossless and they have more dynamics than the original CD releases – the song I tested in the video above registers a very respectable DR10 versus the original CD’s wimpy, over-compressed DR5. And the mastering engineer may surprise you !

The difference is noticeable – maybe not a complete revelation (this is a Chris Lord-Alge mix, after all) – but some people have tried to tell me in the past that music like this or Foo Fighters “needs” a crushed, distorted loudness-war sound.

It’s not true.

Even Green Day sound better with more dynamics.

This is exactly the kind of re-master I was hoping for when I first heard about the Apple’s Mastered For iTunes guidelines – lets hope there are many more to come !

The new Dinosaur Jr. album; I Bet on Sky, is literally not audible. Reviews by iTunes users attest to this as well. I believe the consumers are starting to take note of how the loudness war is ruining music.

Thanks, Ian. This story of unexpected increase of dynamic range is heartening, but not necessarily my experience with HDtracks. In fact, half of my purchases have been remastered with less DR compared to the previous CD releases. There is nothing in the site’s fine print that would indicate remastering in any case, only that “”When you purchase an HDtracks file, it is the same quality as a store-purchased CD.” I don’t consider recordings with less dynamic range equivalent in quality and asked for a refund on three classic albums:”Gaucho”, “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road”, and “Hotel California” which had an overall 5dB RMS increase in loudness. Their response was that they are “not aware of any problems with any of those albums”. Whatever. In these cases 24/96 is def NOT worth the tradeoff to me. Buyer beware.